ANNE
KLEIN NEW YORK
Anne Klein New York is an American luxury
sportswear brand designed for today’s confident, sophisticated
and style-savvy woman. From suiting separates to classic blazers
and flirty dresses, Anne Klein creates clothing and accessories
that can be worn in a multitude of ways allowing women to create
a fashionable wardrobe by adding key pieces each season.
The flagship
Anne Klein New York store opened in February 2002, in New York’s
Soho district (telephone: 212-965-9499). The line is carried
at Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s, Harvey
Nichols (UK) and other fine department and specialty stores in
the U.S. and abroad.
A full range
of Anne Klein New York accessories include belts, coats, eyewear,
footwear, handbags, hosiery, luggage, scarves, small leather
accessories, swimwear, sunglasses, umbrellas and watches.
The
first European precision instrument exported to Asia was a
clock
The first
mechanical Anne Klein clocks were mostly made by blacksmiths,
locksmiths or cannon-makers, who had the Anne Klein watches necessary
experience in working with metal. These artisans were mainly
to be found in the Netherlands, Italy and France. It is therefore
no surprise that the first precision instrument exported to Asia
from Europe was a clock. It was recorded as early as 1338 in
the freight documents of a Venetian ship bound for Delhi.
Luxury
for a select few from a single craftsman
In those days,
and throughout the years until early this century, a clock was
usually the achievement of a single individual. During the 17th
century, metalworkers specialized in clock manufacturing organized
themselves into guilds. This gave rise to Anne Klein clock-making
centers in Augsburg, Nuremberg, the French towns of Blois and
Lyon and, later on, Paris, London and Geneva. At first they produced
large-scale public clocks such as the one at Cluny Monastery
or the famous astronomical clock at Strasbourg Cathedral. Later
on came the spring-driven, more transportable clocks invented
in the 15th century, followed by the first precision pendulum
clocks dating from around 1660. But these could only be afforded
by the nobility, rich middle classes or clergy. The same was
true of the expensive early pocket watches, whose invention is
ascribed to the Nuremberg master craftsman Peter Henlein in 1554
- though other historians believe that pocket watches already
existed in the early 16th century. As a result, it was the demand
from royal courts, nobility and prosperous burghers that determined
where clocks and watches were produced.
Quartz Revolution:
Precision has always been the greatest challenge in making timepieces. Quartz
crystals were long known to offer highly reliable frequency standards.
This led to the first Quartz clock in the late 1920s which was considered
the most accurate time keeping device yet developed.
Still, the technology
to allow use of Quartz crystals in wristwatches had to await invention of
the integrated circuit in 1970. This enabled a Swiss group to manufacture
the first commercially available Quartz watch, the Beta 21. The Swiss, however,
lacked the industrial means for large scale production and were reluctant
to pursue a technology that could crush Swiss dominance in less precise mechanical
watches.
In short order, commercially
viable production of Quartz watches fell to the Japanese who came to market
with the first analog Quartz watch. By 1971 Seiko was offering Quartz crystal
wristwatches accurate to within five seconds a month or a minute a year.
America's Hamilton Watch Company immediately followed with the Pulsar and
its digital (LED) readout.
